Thread by @moscow_project

.@RepJerryNadler lays out how Trump's obstruction harms the Senate and the American people by trying to place the president above the law:

@RepJerryNadler "Without information, we cannot act. So we must ask: Is there a consequence for the president who defies the subpoenas absolutely and who says to all branches of the administration, 'Do not obey a single congressional subpoena?'"

@RepJerryNadler The founders wrote the impeachment clause with exactly the kind of conduct Trump has demonstrated in mind. "It is a reminder to presidents that they answer to something greater than themselves. It confirms that nobody in America is above the law, not even the president."

@RepJerryNadler Impeachment is not a magical safeguard for democracy.
In fact, if the president is allowed to obstruct an impeachment investigation however he sees fit, impeachment becomes "a nullity."

@RepJerryNadler "Unless they are firmly and finally rejected here, the bogus excuses will reappear every time Congress investigates any president for serious abuses of power...They will constitute a playbook for ignoring oversight available to all future president, Democratic or Republican."

@RepJerryNadler "If President Trump is allowed to remain in office after this conduct, historians will mark the date that this Senate allowed this president to break one of our mightiest defenses against tyranny."

@RepJerryNadler Congress has exercised its duty to oversee the executive branch for centuries, under Congresses and presidents of both parties.
Trump is the only president to order complete defiance of an investigation.

@RepJerryNadler "If [Trump] is not removed from office, if he is permitted to defy the Congress entirely, categorically, to say that subpoenas from Congress in an impeachment inquiry are nonsense, then we will have lost all power to hold any president accountable."